Digging Those Dandelions

When I was growing up in Superior, just about everyone’s lawn had a bright yellow flowers which my mother told me were dandelions, a weed that didn’t belong in a lawn.

My father, the practical banker, wanted our lawn to set a good example. At that time the only way to control those pesky yellow flowers was to dig them out. This task fell at first to my mother, but, as I grew older, this became a shared task.

I was trusted with a sharp paring knife. I would be sent out with a galvanized pail and knife to remove the yellow scourge. My mother showed me that it wasn’t enough to just snip the blossoms off or lop off the green leaves. In order to stop the dandelions, you had to dig into the ground around them and removed the rather deep root system. The lot across Kansas Street to the east had no house on it and a lot of dandelion seeds blew over to our lawn.

I worked hard and soon my pail was full of uprooted dandelion plants. It took several days to cover the parking and the front lawn and then there was the side lawn and back yard!

My father found a spray that would kill the dandelions without harming the grass. Dandelion removal shifted from digging to spraying. As I became a teenager, I was allowed to load the spray tank and spray the yard.

Today herbicides can be applied which not only prevent the dandelions from appearing but also kill other weeds and feed the grass. I doubt if young people today are being sent out to dig dandelions, but it certainly was part of growing up in Superior.